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Sunday, March 2, 2014

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittensBright copper kettles and warm woolen mittensBrown paper packages tied up with stringsThese are a few of my favourite things

Well, not
mine. Maria von Trapp’s. They don’t really sound all that great to me, but then
I have the advantage of not living in a country which has been invaded by
Nazis. I suppose most things which aren’t wearing a swastika seem pretty
awesome in those circumstances. I guess what I’m trying to get at is that
favourite things are very personal.

If Cam had
written that song in the last week, it would have gone something like this:

Milk in a bottle and painting on easels

Watching cBeebies, being whiny and tearful

Throwing my Playdoh and having a paddy

Plenty of mummy but NO! NOT DADDY!

Those three
little words are all I’m hearing from my son at the moment. If it’s me who goes
into his room first thing in the morning: “No. Not daddy.” When I come into the
house after work and say hello: “No. Not daddy.” When I try to read him his bedtime
stories: “No. Not Daddy.” You get the idea. I’m definitely not on Cam’s
favourite things list just now. I’m a little worried by the timing. Since
starting my new job I’ve seen considerably less of Cam. I don’t have a day at
home with him anymore, and my day finishes an hour later than in my previous
job. I also have a longer commute. I am also, now, always the one who drops him
off at childcare, but never the one who picks him up. Does that mean he’s
learning to associate me with abandonment?

The whole
thing’s a bit rubbish.

Cam’s always
been very loving toward both me and his mum, and I’m an over sensitive bundle
of emotions masquerading as an actual human man, so this development has given
me a big old dose of feeling sad.

I shrugged
it off for a while, after all, toddlers are adept at latching onto phrases and
repeating them ad nauseum. Before “No. Not Daddy.” came on the scene he could
regularly be heard saying “no grandma, not the knife!” Out of context, that’s
quite an unfortunate choice.

But “No. Not
Daddy.” is more than just words. It’s deliberately avoiding eye contact for
prolonged periods of time. It’s making do-or-die lunges from my arms towards
someone else.

So, what to
do? I’m hoping it’s just a brief phase, that one day soon I will walk into a
room and be greeted with a friendly hug, or at least a cheery hello. But in the
meantime do I ignore what he says and continue trying to hug him, play with
him, read to him? Or should I let him spend a few days with (even more) minimal
daddy input? Let him work out, hopefully, that I’m actually quite nice and he
should want me to be part of his day?

Thursday, January 16, 2014

When I was made redundant in October I said, on this very
blog, that I thought I’d be okay and find another job reasonably quickly.
Thankfully, I was right. I start that new job in four days, and I’m excited.

I won’t go into too much detail about it, but it’s the type
of work I’ve always thought I ought to be doing, but never quite managed to get
into before now. There’s a lot of optimism in my mind at the moment, which is
especially amazing when the job I left had done a pretty good job of grinding
all that out of me.

But. There’s always a but. It’s the law.

I’m going back to work full time. My previous job allowed me
to reduce my hours so that I could share in the childcare duties with Mrs L
when she finished her maternity leave. That meant spending a whole day each
week with Cam. Just me and him, father and son time. I’ve had that privilege
for almost exactly a year, and I have loved it.

As of next Thursday, he’ll have an extra day at nursery, and
I will re-join the full time working parent population. I will see him briefly
in the morning, briefly in the evening, and at weekends. I will, I think, be
quite sad about missing the developments he makes, and the things we get to do,
and all the hugs and affection.

I realise that the time I have been able to spend as a
part-time SAHD marks me out as one of the lucky ones. Most men don’t seem to
have the chance to spend time with their children as they’re growing up. It’s a
massive shame. As far as I’m concerned, the more equally shared the parental
responsibilities are the better it is for all parties. I’d love to think part
time work will be an option for me again sometime in the future.

Still, mortgages need paying; it probably wouldn’t be much
fun having lots of time with Cam if we didn’t have a house to spend it in.

I’m immensely grateful for the time I spent as a part-timer,
and to any other dad reading this who is considering it as a possibility I say
this: DO IT.

Thursday, November 14, 2013

Well hello
there. Long time no see. I wonder whether my little slice of internet has been
feeling neglected? Perhaps. But now, because of being tagged in a meme by Lara,
AKA @apluckyheroine, I’m popping in to drop an alphabet based compendium of me
on you.

And so,
without further ado, here goes; the A-Z of me…

A is for Atheist
– I don’t believe in God, or any of the associated stuff. I don’t mind if other
people do, as long as they’re not using it as an excuse to have a fight with
someone who holds different views. One life is enough for me, I don’t need a
sequel.

B is for Basketball
– Tricky one this, because lots of things I really like begin with B. But I
couldn’t think of a sneaky synonyms for basketball, so it gets to be B. Basketball
is the only team sport I’ve ever enjoyed playing, and I didn’t realise quite
how important it was to my wellbeing until I had to stop playing for a while
(see K is for…) But now I get to play every week. And lose. Our team hasn’t won
a game yet this season.

C is for Cam
– Obviously. How could it not be? My little boy. The best thing I’ve ever had a
hand in making. Hilarious, beautiful, considerate and clever. Manic,
mischievous, infuriating and cheeky. He is more amazing than I have the words
to express. I love him.

D is for Dad
– This came as a package deal with Cam. I’m his dad. I tell him I love him and
he says “thank you”, which is also what he says when I give him a dose of
Calpol, or his Weetabix. Being a dad is a huge part of who I am now. The most
important job I’ll ever have, and I love doing it.

E is for Eloquent
– I’ve lived in the South West of England for almost my entire life. It would
be entirely reasonable to assume I sound like a farmer. Thankfully, I don’t.

F is for Facial
Hair (I know that’s cheating a bit) – Sneaky synonym number one. I have a
beard. Someone once told me I should definitely never get rid of it or “you’d
look like someone who touched goats inappropriately”. Now, I’m of the opinion
that ANY physical contact with a goat is inappropriate, so I figure I’d better
keep the beard. Also I quite like it.

G is for
Grilling – Sneaky synonym number two. I don’t mean the function of an oven
where you leave the door open. I’m borrowing American terminology. Grilling is
barbecue. Proper, delicious barbecue. Slow cooked joints of meat infused with
wood smoke and spices, tender to the point of melting in the mouth, slathered
in hot barbecue sauces that have you licking the plate clean. If you want some
proper barbecue, come to my house, I’d love to cook for you.

H is for Happy
– I am, generally, pretty happy. I don’t think I need say any more on the
subject.

I is for Ironing
– Or, rather, not ironing. The only time I iron anything at the moment is if
I’m attending a wedding, christening or funeral. That might all change if I get
a job in an office where I have to wear nice shirts, but even if that does
happen I’ll still think ironing is one of the most ridiculous activities we
undertake as humans.

J is for Junk
– I’m a bit of a hoarder of useless crap. Partly this is because I’m quite
sentimental, and I attach memories and feelings to physical objects, which then
makes it hard to part company with them. On the other hand, I have no such
attachment to the Hippo Bag full of gravel which is sat in the lane behind our
house, and has done for a number of years. Does anyone want some gravel? Free
to collector. Probably contains some cat poo.

K is for
Knees – I, like most people, have two of these. Wonderful joint, the knee,
until it goes wrong. In 2008 I tore my ACL playing basketball. It’s a serious
injury and means your capacity for lateral movement is almost zero.
Irritatingly, it also doesn’t heal on its own. A very nice surgeon removed a
piece of tendon from my hamstring, drilled a new hole in my tibia and fibula
and threaded the piece of tendon through to make me a shiny new ACL. I love it,
it means I can do all the things I used to do, but now I appreciate them a lot
more. Thank you NHS.

L is for
Lefty – I’m left handed. It has had no negative impact on my life, aside from
an inability to use scissors, or write with a fountain pen. I am also,
politically, left of centre. I like it over here, I think it’s where the nice
people are (Disclaimer: there are nice people on the right too, I know some of
them)

M is for
Misanthropy – You disgust me. Not you personally. You in your capacity as a
member of the human race. Sometimes I look at us all, collectively, and think
“what the fuck are we doing?”

N is for Nice
– I try to be nice to people whenever I can (even though it seems like a
massive contradiction to what I’ve put for M). It’s nice to be nice, and it
also makes you feel good. I wish more people would try being nice to other
people, rather than only being nice to themselves.

O is for
Overweight – I could do with losing a few pounds. I have recently dipped back
below fourteen stone, which isn’t too bad for a six foot tall man, but I’d like
to weigh a bit less.

P is for Pedant
– I am prone to pointing out errors in people’s writing. Some people are
grateful, others think it makes me a prick.

Q is for
Quiet – I am quite quiet in person. It takes me quite a while (or a few quick
drinks) to feel sufficiently comfortable to be really chatty with new people in
social situations.

R is for
Reading – I do like a good read. There isn’t enough time in the world for all
the reading I’d like to do. Whether it’s the escapism of fiction or the joy of
learning something new in non-fiction, I’m incredibly grateful for whatever
evolutionary tweak allows us to have a language and to translate that language
into a set of arbitrary symbols which other people can then understand.
Wonderful.

S is for Shy
- *goes all coy*

T is for Tired
– Standard, as I have a young child.

U is for
Unemployed – I currently have no job. To be honest, in the short term, it has
been quite nice. I’m sure I’ll soon feel differently once the money runs low
though. I’d like to work as a Communications Officer, so if you’re hiring one,
do let me know…

V is for
Velocipede - Bikes are ace. Bikes are fun. Bikes let you go twice as far as
walking, for a quarter of the effort. If you ride your bike often enough, you
can eat as much cake as you like, and still not be fat. If that’s not a good
advert for them, I don’t know what is.

W is for
Writing – I like writing. Words are my friends. When I was younger I thought I
might be able to write for a living. That didn’t quite pan out, but who knows,
maybe it will one day?

X is for
Nothing – I know nothing doesn’t begin with X, but neither does anything about
me. My car has Xenon headlights, but that’s not even slightly relevant.

Y is for Yet
– As in, “I am yet to work out what I really ought to be doing with my life”.
Tips on a postcard please.

Z is for
Zzzzz – You may be snoring by now, having read all about me, but I’d wager
you’re not snoring as loud as I do. Pity my wife.

That was harder than I expected, but quite entertaining. Not only that, while I was writing it I thought of another blog post I could write, so that's nice.

Thursday, October 3, 2013

I’ve been
made redundant once before. In 2010, a couple of years after the banks all
started imploding and collapsing in on themselves like dying stars, the
resultant economic black hole had expanded from its beginnings in the City of
London and reached such crucial financial outposts as Bristol.

Actual black
holes are reputed to suck in everything around them. Nothing can escape. Even
that speediest of speedy things, light, isn’t speedy enough to escape the
clutches of the black hole. Its fiscal equivalent feeds on jobs. Thousands and
thousands of jobs. By the time my job was “reviewed” and, ultimately, “rationalised”,
the job losses at my company alone came to around 20,000.

I didn’t
fear redundancy in 2010. I embraced it. Redundancy knocked on my door and I
welcomed it in, made it a hot cup of tea and told it I would happily be made
redundant. Because I was young. Because I was (in marital terms) single. Because
nobody depended on the money I was paid. Because of course I would get another
job, how hard could it be?

People who
had worked at the company for decades were concerned. Their CVs had last been
updated when MS DOS was but a twinkle in the pre-pubescent mind of Bill Gates.
Some had probably been written on papyrus.

But I was
convinced I’d be fine.

And I was,
more or less, correct. I was unemployed for about two months.

Now, in
2013, the job I got after I was made redundant the first time is* making me
redundant. Sorry, it’s making my ROLE redundant. A distinction I should imagine
will keep my spirits resolutely afloat when I drag my arse into the Job Centre
for the first time. At least I only have to go once every fortnight…

I'll have a new one of these soon. Mine won't be courtesy of The Telegraph though, like this photo is.

Anyway, yes,
today I was formally entered into the consultation period which it is “more
than likely” will lead to my exit from the company in somewhere between three
and eight weeks’ time.

How do I
feel?

Dunno.

Alright.
Then not alright. Confident. Then scared. Sure of my abilities. Doubtful. It
changes by the hour, by the minute, by the second. Changes when I look at job
websites overflowing with “opportunities” which barely warrant the name.
Changes when I think about the array of fixed costs I can do nothing to reduce,
which zip from my bank account like electronic ghosts. Changes when I hold my
baby boy and wonder whether, soon, he’ll be seeing a lot more of me than he
currently does. Changes when I think about that black hole, which still no-one
has managed to sow up and stop.

I’m trying
to think of it in positive terms: a new beginning, a chance to do something I’ve
always wanted (what have I always wanted to do? Nothing, I don’t think).

But it’s not
always easy to be positive about something so overwhelmingly negative.

Pretty soon
I’ll be jobless, and the best thing about it is going to be keeping my curtains
closed all day and tweeting pictures of them to George Osborne.

Sunday, September 29, 2013

Hello there. A person I know is running a writing competition at the moment. You can find details of it here: @DustandLove's Competition. Should you wish to enter, I'm sure that would make him very happy indeed.

Here is my entry to the competition. It weighs in at 300 words exactly, although it was originally quite a bit more. Apologies if there are now bits which don't make sense, though I think I've made it so there are not.

Love

Brian, across the road, lives alone. His wife’s dead, and
his son moved out long before we moved here. He doesn’t see him, or even speak
to him. Hasn’t for years, apparently.

Like most lonely old people, Brian loves a chat. He doesn’t
need much of an opening to tell you about his army days, or the many years he
spent with his wife. The one thing he doesn’t often talk about is his son. The
one time he did, he described him as “a little shit”, but didn’t say why.

There’s a sadness in Brian’s face, a permanent feature,
sitting beneath the white beard and deep within the wrinkles. I wonder whether
it was one specific thing which put the sadness there, or many. I don’t suppose
I’ll ever find out.

Most evenings I watch the news. Tonight, the headline story
is a violent armed robbery in the city, the CCTV footage grainy but dramatic;
the perpetrator remains armed, unidentified and uncaught. Police advise nearby
residents to keep their homes secure. Don’t allow entry to anyone you don’t
know. I’m not worried, but I check the house just in case, it’s only sensible.

Later, as I’m going to bed, a car comes into the road at
speed, its tyres barely maintaining traction as the driver hits the brakes.
Peering out of my window I see a man emerge. He doesn’t look grainy now, even
in the poor light. It’s the fugitive, and he’s approaching Brian’s house.

The old man comes to the door, and I’m terrified for him.
Why open it? But the two men embrace, before Brian furtively ushers the man inside.
He looks up, sees me. I drop the curtain quickly, but not before I’ve seen that
the sadness is gone from his face. Brian is smiling.

-

I would love to receive feedback, good or bad, on the story in the comments area below. Go on.

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

I'm not sure how I feel about something, and I'd like to canvass some opinion.

Here's the thing: every month, a direct debit for £89 whooshes silently from my bank account and into the coffers of NPower. In return for my £89, I have sockets which dispense electricity, lights which illuminate my family's home when we flick the switch, and toasty warm radiators when the temperature plummets in the winter months (for the record, it's not on yet, I've only got back into wearing trousers instead of shorts in the last fortnight).

A lot goes into that bill, you can see what proportion is spent on what by looking here.

Eighty-nine pounds. On the face of it, that doesn't seem too expensive for such a crucial product: energy. And it's not. When that bill lands on the mat, I groan, but not because it's really expensive. Just because it's a bill, and the only post I ever get is either telling me how much money is going into my account (not enough) how much is coming out (plenty) or how much is left (less than nothing, generally).

But we all need energy. Heating and lights are not things I would ever want to have to make do without (although there are those who do, and that's another blog post entirely). Energy is an essential.

A socket, in my house, right now.

The thing I'm unsure of is this: do I think it's okay that the suppliers of our energy are making a shedload of money by selling it to us?

Today, Ed Milliband gave his speech to the Labour Party conference. In it, he said a Labour government would freeze the price of energy until 2017. Almost immediately, the Guardian (yes, sorry, I'm a bit lefty) comments section was full of people saying things like "it's a nice step in the direction of re-nationalisation" and others saying "re-nationalisation is just a return to the outdated politics of the 70s, when Labour fucked the country right up and there were power shortages".

Thing is, I don't remember the 70s, because I hadn't been born. I can well imagine that it was a bit shit, three day working weeks, strikes on all days ending in y, that sort of thing. But is there a reason, intrinsic to nationalisation, that the supply of energy couldn't be publicly owned? I don't know. What do you reckon?

What I see at the moment is a few, very large, companies who can pretty much charge what they want for energy, because what are we going to do about it? Unless we want a return to using candles to light our homes, to using an open fire to heat them, we can't decide we won't give one of the energy suppliers our custom. They can charge what they like, make as much money as they see fit, and we have very little say over it. That doesn't seem fair to me.

Friday, September 13, 2013

I wrote the following bit of fiction after reading about the Voyager 1 probe leaving our solar system, I'd love to know what you think of it, even if it's really bad (which it might well be, I've never written anything sci-fi-ish). Cheers.

A picture of Voyager 1, courtesy of www.space.com

“Let’s start
with a question: which single person is responsible for the greatest number of
human deaths in our recorded history? Here’s a little clue, in case you’ve been
asleep for the past few years: it’s not any of the first few names you’re
thinking of. Hitler? Too obvious. Pol Pot? Ditto. None of those depraved
motherfuckers managed to rack up as many corpses as this guy. Worst thing? Dude
wasn’t even trying to be a killer, he was just an explorer.”

Ian’s
finished, and he’s looking at me for an answer, his usual smug grin spread
across his face. He knows I don’t know, and he loves it.

I shrug, “Man,
you know history ain’t my thing, it could be Elvis Presley and I wouldn’t have
heard. It’s got to be whoever you’re holding responsible for all this though.”
I wave a hand in the direction of the armoured glass window separating us from
the outside world. Earth, and that’s about all that’s left out there now.
Barren and scorched, there’s nothing left of the lush, green world I grew up
in. Everything’s grey now. At least it makes camouflage easy.

The grin
gets wider as Ian soaks up this tiny victory, uses the feeling to nourish his
soul for a moment. “Sorry man, trick question. No-one even knows the guy’s name.
Whoever signed the order to go ahead with the old Voyager program. Death
warrant for humankind that one, not that he ever could have known. Or she.
Could have been a woman. Not sure NASA was much into the equality struggle in
the sixties though. Leave that to the hippies I guess.”

So it’s
going to be a Voyager day. Great. Ian’s favourite. I’ve heard it all before,
more times than I can remember. Still, if it keeps the conversation away from
some of the other great debates (Slayer or Metallica, Android or iOS) I’m not
about to complain. Not that it would make a difference whether I complain or
not; Ian is a great talker, but listening isn’t a strong suit.

“Anyway,
mister or missus NASA signs the papers and Voyager is go. The scientists and
engineers beaver away for a while and in ’77 the thing’s ready to be flung out
into the abyss. Past Saturn and Jupiter, sending us the digital postcards as it
goes. That big red spot on Jupiter? A storm big enough to envelope Earth, made
of superhot gasses. I tell you man, that film Twister? Would have been a lot
shorter if they’d been chasing that storm! But photos of Jupiter and Saturn
were just the starters for Voyager, it’d been built to last, and the NASA boys
wanted it to keep on going. So they aimed it at the edge of the solar system
and away it went.”

I’ve got
pretty good at looking like I’m interested in what Ian’s saying, when I’m
actually keeping an eye on the monitors for any hostile movements outside, so
these history lessons really just wash over me now. That’s good, as they tend
to last a while. I don’t have anywhere better to be right now, or ever, and most
of the time the background hum of Ian talking is preferable to the background
hum of the micronuclear generator keeping this place going.

“It’s sort
of funny when you think about it, some people worried about the gold disc on
Voyager being an invitation to any megalomaniac aliens to come and get scrappy
with us, in the end it wasn’t what we had to say that mattered, it was where we
were saying it.”

He’s stopped
talking, and is staring at the semi-automatic rifle he has in his hands. Before
all this happened, he’d have loved to get his hands on something like that. Ian
had been one of those guys who really enjoyed a bit of simulated war. Airsoft,
paintball, Call of Duty online with a battalion of other players who were well
off enough to know damn well they’d never be called upon to look down the
barrel of a gun that fired something more real than a plastic pellet, thimbleful
of paint or a collection of visually accurate pixels. Until now. And that same
semi-automatic weapon, the pinnacle of human design, full of carbon composites
and Computer Aided Death, suddenly looked like bringing a knife to a gunfight
once the BHLs showed up.

That’s
Beyond Heliosphere Lifeforms, by the way. Named after the theoretical limits of
the Sun, our sun’s, influence on
space. Once you’re out of the heliosphere, you’re really in outer space. You can
also stop worrying whether you’ve applied suncream. A tan is the least of your
worries though, because it turns out there’s a whole lot of other intelligent
life in the galaxy, and they’re mostly just as capable of being nasty fuckers
as we are.

The only
reason we didn’t hear from the BHLs before is because of Interstellar Law. Any
species with the capacity for interstellar travel is forbidden from entering
another inhabited solar system, until such time as the inhabitants of that
system send something physical outside of its boundaries.

Something
like a 700kg, nuclear powered space probe called Voyager, with a gold disc attached
to it which spells out just what galactic n00bs we are.

The rest of
the universe gave us just over a year to get ready, and turned up on the same
day that those cheerful, clever bastards at NASA proudly announced to the world
that Voyager had left the solar system a year before. It was Friday the 13th
too. Typical.